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GOLD MINING STOCKS AND GOLD MUTUAL FUNDS

When compared with investing in gold itself,investments in shares of gold mining companies have a number of advantages and disadvantages, depending on your investment needs. Among the advantages are the fact that most gold company stocks pay a dividend which, dependent upon its magnitude and surety, can yield current income from the investment. And generally, if gold metal prices increase, earnings and often dividends will rise.

You should also determine whether the company in question is a pure gold play or whether it has some degree of diversification. Diversification, as such, may diminish the movement of earnings with gold price changes but may, however, provide cash flow and alternative earnings in times of low gold prices. Individual portfolio requirements will dictate which factors are most important.

An investment in gold mining stocks should be monitored on a regular basis because ore bodies can be mined out, unit costs can equal or exceed market prices, and mines can be shut down.

As with all investments, there is an ongoing need for timely portfolio supervision. If you can't or don't want to do it yourself, it can be done for you by investment in a mutual fund that invests in the shares of gold mining companies. With such an investment, through the payment of a fee you can gain a professionally managed diversification of your gold mining stocks.

Gold Mutual Funds Offer Many Advantages

If you would like to make a modest investment in gold mining stocks and are looking for the safest and easiest way of doing it, the answer lies in mutual funds.

Why? First, easy investing. Call a mutual fund and ask it to send you a prospectus. If you like what you read, just send in your application form and check. Second, you can invest in some funds for as little as $250! Third, a gold mutual fund is less risky because its risk is spread through its ownership of shares in dozens of different gold mining companies. Fourth, there's also a possibility of dividends.

But all investments related to gold mining are investments in a business -- not in gold itself -- and carry the normal business risks of any stock investment.

WHO DECIDES THE PRICE OF GOLD?

Gold is traded around the world and around the clock with the price always changing back and forth between London, Zurich, Hong Kong, Winnipeg, New York and other major gold trading centers.

However, prices published in your local newspapers are usually based on either prices issued at noon and at the close of trading by New York's Commodity Exchange Inc. (COMEX) or on the famous twice daily London "fixing" by major bullion dealers there.

In a ritual carried out since 1919, each member of the London Gold Market is represented at the fixing and its representative is in direct communication with his own trading room, while a representative of one of the major bullion houses acts as chairman.

After considering the price at which gold has been trading so far that day, the chairman suggests a price which the gold market members communicate to their own traders. The traders respond by telling the chairman whether they wish to buy, sell or have no interest. The chairman then suggests other prices until all buyers and sellers agree on both price and quantity. At that point, worldwide supply and demand comes into balance and the chairman declares the price "fixed."

But immediately thereafter, traders begin to change the price in accordance with the realities of supply and demand in their own trading area.

GOLD AND THE IRS

A new Internal Revenue Service ruling may stir thousands of coin dealers -- who stopped selling bullion products in the 1980's because of burdensome reporting requirements -- to once again sell bullion without fear of running afoul of government regulations.

The new regulation "Revenue Procedure 92-103" states that information returns filed on Form 1099-B are only necessary when sales are equal to or exceed Commodity Futures Trading Commission contract sizes. For gold bars, the contract or sales size is 1 kilo (32.15 oz.) with fineness of at least .995. For 1-ounce gold Maple Leafs and 1-ounce gold Krugerrands the sales size is 25 coins. No other gold investment products are subject to IRS reporting. Amounts for silver, platinum, and palladium products are also detailed in the ruling.

Since a 1982 IRS ruling, it was widely assumed that all retail bullion sales required a report to the IRS. The cost and burden of that reporting, coupled with increased government audits and rigid but arbitrary enforcement, has caused perhaps as many as 5,000 small coin dealers and metals brokers to leave the precious metals bullion business in recent years, according to the Industry Council for Tangible Assets which fought for ten years to change the regulations.

Many of the thousands of coin dealers who stopped selling bullion products out of fear, confusion and uncertainty over the previous ruling should now feel sufficiently confident to reestablish sales and service to their customers.

The prospect of thousands of coin dealers and bullion brokers reemerging as active sales entities for bullion, bar and coin products can be viewed as a highly positive development not only for the coin dealer community but the precious metals industry as a whole.